Alienated Majesty Books, a bookstore and community space in Austin, Tex., specializing in small press poetry, fiction, and works in translation, held its soft opening recently. The store is located at 613 West 29th St., site of the former Malvern Books, which closed last December.
José Skinner and Melynda Nuss, co-owners of Alienated Majesty Books, were interviewed about their new venture in a Malvern Books blog post. "We opened our doors for the first time on August 15th--ready or not!" they said. "We didn't circulate the news widely because we were still missing a few major orders. But people still found us, and we had a great day. We will probably still be unpacking boxes for a few weeks. We hope readers don't mind the mess! But we have some great books in, and we know people are ready to have them. It should be a fun--if chaotic--time."
The shop's name comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Self Reliance," which states that "in every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty." Skinner and Nuss said they "liked the optimistic feel of the quote. We hope that readers will find their own ideas in our books returning to them in interesting and innovative ways."
Regarding their own paths to becoming booksellers, they noted: "Honestly, we never thought of opening a bookstore until Malvern closed. Like a lot of people, we paid a few final visits once we heard the store was closing, and we started to realize how much having a place like this meant to the city and the literary community. Our friends encouraged us to keep it going, so we took the plunge."
Skinner started writing dispatches from Nicaragua and El Salvador in the 1980s. He graduated from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and co-founded and directed the Creative Writing M.F.A. at the University of Texas Pan American (now UT-RGV). He is the author of two collections of short stories, Flight and The Tombstone Race, and a forthcoming novel, The Search Committee.
Nuss has a Ph.D. in English and taught literature for more than a decade. She is also an attorney and, after retiring from teaching, started a small law practice to help writers with their copyrights and contracts. It was through her clients that she learned what a vibrant role small independent presses play, and she wanted to make those books more available to readers.
Skinner and Nuss described Alienated Majesty's mission as providing a place "where the readers of Austin can come to discover authors that they might not find at other bookstores. We focus on works published by small, independent presses--though we will carry a few large press books if we think they will appeal to our readership. We also plan to carry a large number of works translated from other languages.... We hope everyone who loved Malvern will find a home here."
A grand opening weekend is anticipated for late September or early October.